From magic lanterns to virtual reality

Animation: The Global History

By Maureen Furniss
Designed by Turchini Design
Thames & Hudson, £35

In her preface, Maureen Furniss tells it how it was: ‘In twenty years of teaching animation, I have never found one book that covered all the aspects of history I wished to present.’ This book, one assumes, gives us all those aspects.

The story begins in the early nineteenth century, with devices such as magic lanterns, the thaumatrope, the phenakistoscope, and the zoetrope, all disks imprinted with sequential images and spun to create the illusion of animated movement. The photographs of Eadweard Muybridge and the special effects of Georges Méliès are covered before animation begins with Émile Cohl and the brilliant Winsor McCay in the years prior to the First World War…

Cover for Animation: The Global History designed by Turchini Design.
Top: Image from Animation: The Global History showing a still from Toy Story, 1995, directed by John Lasseter.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. You can see what Eye 94 looks like at Eye before You Buy on Vimeo.